Remarks of Paul Roye
Media Briefing on Mutual Fund Cost Calculator
April 6, 1999
Costs have a dramatic effect on a mutual fund
investor's return. A 1% annual fee, for example, will
reduce an ending account balance by 18% on an investment
held for 20 years.
For that reason, the Commission has long required that
mutual fund fees and charges be fully disclosed so that
investors can make informed investment decisions. Since
1988, every mutual fund prospectus has been required to
include a fee table -- a uniform, tabular presentation that
shows the fees and charges associated with a mutual fund
investment.
We have found, though, that there is a gap between the
widespread availability of mutual fund cost information in
the fee table and investors' ability to use that information
effectively. Investors are often stumped when they try to
answer questions like: I am planning to retire in 20 years.
Am I better off buying a no-load fund with annual expenses
of 1.5% or a fund with a front-end sales charge of 3.5% and
annual expenses of 0.90%? And what if I decide to retire in
15 years rather than 20 years?
The Cost Calculator is designed to answer questions
like these -- to close the gap between the fee table and
investors' ability to use the fee table information to make
a real-world investment decision. Using the Cost
Calculator, an investor can sit down with the prospectus for
a fund he or she is considering and compute the effect of
fund costs over the period the investor expects to hold the
fund -- in dollars and cents. And the investor can compare
that dollars and cents number to the dollars and cents
number for another fund.
But costs are not the whole story in making a mutual
fund investment decision. Investors need to consider many
other factors as well, including the investor's time
horizon, the types of securities a fund holds, the risks of
the fund, the investor's need for diversification, the fund
company and portfolio manager who run the fund, the fund's
past performance, and the services offered by the fund. But
costs are a very important part of the investment equation,
and the Cost Calculator should make that part of the
equation more understandable.
Now, we'll turn to Nancy Smith and Erik Sirri, whose
office developed the Cost Calculator, to demonstrate how it
works.